, with Lily for a star
later on! And he set to work, with vim and vigor, learned a few tricks on
his bike, taught his wife the business in less than no time; and Lily's
first memories as a four-year-old were:

"I was sitting on Ma's shoulders, Ma on Pa's and Pa on the bike."

And Lily zigzagged through New Zealand, from east to west and north to
south, and Australia after, where she received plenty of applause for her
tricks, childish in themselves, but well presented. Her triumphant path
wound among tinseled bottles containing paper flowers, with a faultless
standstill for the climax, one hand on the handle-bar, the other blowing
kisses to the audience. This procured Pa an engagement for India. He
ordered a beautiful colored poster, "The Clifton Family, Trick Cyclists,"
with a portrait in the corner of his own strong face and bristling
mustache--"P. T. Clifton, Manager"--one more rung in the ladder of life
mounted, thanks to his Lily.

And Pa smiled to his daughter and, as she ran past him, lifted her on his
knee and stroked her fair curls; and the child cuddled up to her Pa,
opened her lips to ask questions, but was silent, with her eyes lost in
space, puckering her little forehead, in which were heaped so many mingled
memories of the stage and the great world outside: the Boxing Kangaroo;
tall cliffs; green islands; the bike; Batavia among the trees; Singapore,
with its noise and dust. And Lily, wearily, dreamed and murmured things,
while the steamer sped on, thud, thud, thud, flat as a stage in its blue
"set."

Lily's impressions of India were months of jolting and bumping, stops in
the dead of night while the tent was pitched, rains, strong smells,
oppressive heats--months and months of it, Ma on Pa, Pa on the wheel and
she on top, waving flags. Yellow faces on the benches, red flowers and,
somewhere, on a river-bank, two eyes glittering in the dark: a tiger,
somebody said! And every night the artistes, carrying lanterns, walked in
file between the circus and the hotel, with the ladies in the center and
Lily clinging to Ma's skirt.

She did more now, in addition to the bike: a song-and-dance turn. In a
piping falsetto, she quavered:

"Star light! Star bright!"

She was spoiled by the ladies, the wives of the officers stationed in
those out-of-the-way holes. She played with smart children, was taken for
drives, had her social successes! Chocolates, sweets, kisses. And a lady
gave her such a pretty dress: his